An anniversary staycation

August 25th, 2007: Reading (where it all began!)

August 25th, 2008: Littlehampton.  We spent an anniversary weekend at Bailiffscourt Hotel & Spa venturing into nearby Brighton eating lots of cupcakes and drinking milkshakes!

August 25th, 2009: Koh Tao.  We celebrated our 2nd anniversary in Thailand! in this amazing little hilltop villa overlooking the ocean.

August 25th, 2010: Milton Keynes.  We celebrated with a spot of my favourite food, Mexican, before heading out to the Caribbean a few days later!

August 25th, 2011: London

The 25th August marked 4 years of being married to my favourite person! How 4 years has flown by so fast I have no idea, but I know they have been the most fun and happy of my life and there is no one I'd rather spend time with then Byron! 

So we celebrated by trying out Shaka Zulu, a South African restaurant located inside the Stables Market in Camden.  We had been wanting to try it for a while because of our South African ties but it was a little on the pricey side but thanks to all our generous anniversary gifts from our parents we were able to make it a date! 

It is the most extravagant and ornate restaurant I think I've ever been to and really quite an experience! 

There were statues of Zulu warriors everywhere and all the tables were intricately decorated with mosaic tiles.

We had the most amazing non alcoholic cocktail consisting of caramel, pineapple juice, lemon juice, pomegranate and apple - it was absolutely delish!

and then we move on to the food!! which of course was the whole reason we came and we were certainly not disappointed! I had an amazing starter meat board full of all my favourite South African meats: biltong, droewors and even some chilli snapsticks! I could have just gone home happy right then! 

By, rather daring as usual, had an ostrich carpaccio which he said was pretty tasty too! 

For my main I had boerewors with peri peri fries and By had his favourite, a fillet steak, with triple cooked fries.  They were some fat fries!

and my favourite course of the night, as always, dessert! 

We finished off the night with some very traditional South African desserts.  I had Koeksisters (a fried doughnut covered in lime and lemon syrup) and By had Melktert.  You don't have to speak Afrikaans to understand that one which is basically 'milk tart'.  We grew up being baked those kind of desserts by our grandparents so it was fun to eat them in this snazzy restaurant!!

It was an amazing night, definitely a great pick for a special meal and I just had to snap a pic of this giant Zulu as we left!

The next day we headed down to the Southbank, which has become one of our favourite London spots, and I just had to have a picture of me and the Gherkin in the background.  I love it!

I took By to the viewing deck of the Oxo Tower so he could check out the view from up there too.

It was pretty good despite the clouds! 

As usual the street entertainment was awesome and we found this crazy bubble blower who had the most amazing contraptions for blowing massive amounts of bubbles at once! 

and the most enormous bubbles you've ever seen! 

He was delighting all of the kids!

I had never seen anything like it before! we were mesmerised! 

I found this sign and it was so true! 

We tasted all day long, it's our fave thing to do! and the Southbank has so much amazing food it is kind of criminal not to!

We waited for hours for Pitt Cue Co to open...but it had to be done because every blog or time out article you read they are getting rave reviews! 

and it is easy to see why - this pulled pork was completely amazing! 

We headed to the Real Food Market after, which is just behind the Southbank Centre.

It was buzzing! and the sun came out for a brief while too! 

By opted for a homemade cheese toastie with homemade chutney too!

The smile says it all!

Of course there were plenty of cupcakes and baked goods involved too, you can check them out on my cupcake blog.

and we topped off a lovely bank holiday weekend with an amazing trip to Everyman Cinemas in Hampstead to see One Day.  Can you believe they sold cupcakes that you could take into the cinema!! I think it may just be my favourite cinema ever...

and not only for the cupcakes but because we got our own private sofa to sit on and a foot rest...it was pure luxury!